Walk: Around the ponds of Ixelles.

Who doesn’t want to live in the idyllic greenery of the Maalbeek valley? Nature has been recuperated here in ponds, rocks, fountains and the front gardens. The orchestrated landscape is reflected in the surface of the water and in the architecture. One aristocratic house is already more chic than the other, built in a variety of styles.
On this walk, Art Nouveau predominates over the houses built at the turn of the last century. The architects Ernest Blerot and Ernest Delune were daring in their talents and built a dozen houses around the ponds. After the First World War, architectural tastes changed and solutions for living comfort were sought, as in ‘La Cascade’ by architect René Ajou. Architect and building promoter Jean-Florian Collin, the founder of Etrimo and Stanislas Jansinki, in turn built high-profile apartment buildings.
Numerous artists, poets and writers have lived around the ponds: Camille Lemonnier, Emile Verhaeren and last but not least “Akarova”, dancer, set designer, painter and sculptress.
The ponds meander through the landscape and culminate in the spring: the site of the Cistercian abbey. It was on this site that Henry van de Velde later founded the school ‘La Cambre’, following the example of the Weimar School of Fine Arts.

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